John Tobin thought he'd finally hit the jackpot - until he awoke with a gun pointed at his chest.
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"Then I knew we were f***ed," the former Sydney Roosters captain told AAP after serving eight-and-a-half years in prison, the first three in maximum security at Long Bay, for his part in a billion-dollar cocaine smuggling attempt that went horribly wrong.
To say Tobin's life spiralled out of control after his wife of 25 years emptied the family home and abruptly walked out is an understatement.
"Desperate men do desperate things," he said of his plight in a fascinating, warts-and-all cleansing of his soul.
"Funnily enough, everything I did was right. And then I did something wrong and then you're playing catch-up to fix what you did, and you can't get ahead. You just keep going down."
After retiring from rugby league in 1987, following a distinguished 125-game career and featuring in the Roosters' famous 1980 grand final loss to Canterbury, when Steve Gearin scored that try off a Greg Brentnall bomb, Tobin was "going great" selling poker machines in Queensland.
Preparing to build a dream home on the beach and "going great", that is, until returning to the Sunshine Coast one weekend from a mate's 50th birthday in Sydney.
"I come back, walk in the door, she's gone. Took everything," he recalls.
"The only thing she didn't take was a table and a bed, and the only reason she didn't take them, she couldn't get them on the truck.
"So after 25 years of marriage, here you are. Didn't see it coming at all."
Tobin's two teenaged sons were at boarding school in Brisbane at the time, at a cost of approximately $60,000 a year.
With the bills mounting, the one-time City Firsts representative made his first big poor choice - going into business with a friend. The venture went south and so did Tobin.
"I started selling cocaine on the Gold Coast," he said.
"I was doing it for a mate of mine. I knew these blokes from school. The bloke that I was running around with on the Gold Coast was a bloke that I played football with. He's no good. Most of them are no good, mate.
"Anyway, we went and saw the Rolling Stones in Adelaide, I come back and 10 coppers are running through the joint and find seven ounces of coke and 350 pills - in my joint.
"So I got pinched for that."
But here's the kicker. Tobin never faced the music for that offence. He was on bail awaiting sentencing when he was caught red-handed in police operation "Okesi", resulting in eight and a half years in jail.
The now-66-year-old will return to the Brisbane Supreme Court on January 22 to learn his fate for that "ongoing supply" charge in south-east Queensland.
"More than likely I'll probably go to jail again. It's heads or tails," he said.
"Depending on whether or not they think I need more time. I feel rehabilitated but, look, at the end of the day, what you do in your life is what you do. No one else did it, I've done it.
"So you can sugar-coat anything to make me look great but I'm not, because I f***ed up.
"Once you realise that and take ownership of it, it's not too bad."
Unsure of his future, Tobin is biding his time before sentencing at a lodge in Campbelltown. Institutionalised from almost a decade behind bars, he couldn't accept offers of a free bed at friends' places.
Instead he accepted their offer to pay for his motel in western Sydney.
"You've got to think positive. I've just got to find some work," he said.
"I've got one foot in the grave and one foot out because I've got no money.
"That's the be-all and end-all."
Mild-mannered, thoughtful and polite, but still a convicted criminal, Tobin is telling his story in the hope of deterring others from venturing down the same slippery slope he did.
"If I can help just one person," he said, before detailing the extraordinary scenes of Christmas night 2016, when his life changed forever.
The raid took place at the Sydney Fish Markets after Tobin spent 21 days at sea - exactly where he is still not sure - to procure "the gear", allegedly from a Colombian submarine.
"I didn't need to know. I wasn't a ringleader. Just another f***wit on the boat," he said.
"It was north-east of Australia. In the water somewhere."
After four failed "conspiracies" over two and a half years working in a 15-man syndicate, Tobin stood to collect $2 million after finally returning around 600kg of cocaine to Sydney.
He thought they were in the clear.
The trouble was, an undercover officer had infiltrated the group "right from the start". Tobin was always doomed.
"We didn't have the coke on board at the time. We'd already unloaded some to a car and then we motored back," he said.
"It was already in vehicles ready to go and I was just lying down and I heard all this yelling and screaming and thought, 'What the f***'s that?'.
"And then next minute, 'Get on the ground, get on the ground' and here's this red dot on my chest. I went, 'What the f***'s that?'
"Anyway, it's a gun. I certainly got on the ground, still in my pyjamas. What a wake-up call."
For his involvement, Tobin spent from early 2018 until July 24 this year with "scumbags and pieces of shit" in Long Bay, Cessnock, Kempsey, Emu Plains and Macquarie correctional centres. There were also two horrible days in protection alongside paedophiles.
While it was rough, Tobin feels lucky to have only been bashed three times, and suffering no broken bones.
"They were the only three dramas I had in the eight-and-a-half years," he said.
Guards regarded the popular ex-footballer highly.
Tobin refused to perform sexual favours while in prison. The former Roosters skipper survived jail by playing it smart, recalling how he "always found the bloke running the jail".
"Because there's always somebody who runs the joint. That's just the hierarchy," he said.
"I said, 'Mate, this is what I'm doing. If you want me to work in the f***ing tool shed or any other f***ing shed, I'll do that every day of the f***ing week. But I'm not doing anything for you'.
"That earns you respect. Otherwise ... they prey on the weak because they are just scumbags."
Still, jail life obviously took a great physical and mental toll on Tobin.
In addition to being 'f***ed in the mind' and over-regimented, the former 90kg lock forward now weighs only 68kgs.
"I've got to start doing some more exercise because I've lost too much weight. This is what happens from jail," he said.
"That comes from not eating and that comes because you've got no money, and that's how they wear you down."
While several former Roosters teammates and one of his sons visited Tobin while in prison, his other boy didn't.
"We have had a bit of a love-hate relationship for some reason. I don't know why," he said.
"But I will reach out to him again. Which I did to my sister the other week.
"It's funny, you always think that people think badly of you, but they don't.
"It's what you think they think, and you can't think what they think.
"But it's still my fault. I can't blame anyone because I put myself in jail. No one else did - and I have to live with that."
Australian Associated Press
